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wjm110's The Resistance (Other)
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| [March 28, 2012 08:43:47 AM]
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My second experience with The Resistance was a different one from the first. The first game allowed me and the rest of the players to learn the mechanics and emerging strategy of the game. The next time we played, we really got to the meat of the gameplay. And it most certainly did not disappoint.
I experienced every bit of the fun that I'm sure the developers intended for me to have. The rules were familiar, allowing me to focus on what was happening behind the scenes. Monitoring players and guessing their alliance remained a significant challenge, and it quickly became the main strategic draw of the game.
The game is not very innovative, but it takes a proven formula (a la Mafia) and improves upon it. Unlike Mafia, where players can be eliminated each turn and where a dedicated leader who does not actually participate in the game is required, The Resistance retains the concise fun of its inspirations while allowing everyone to join in the game.
Simply allowing everyone to play (and to say anything they want) creates supremely random and always intriguing gameplay. Almost constantly throughout, accusations were being thrown at all different players -- nobody could really ever know for certain the alliance of other players. But the fun of the game comes from predicting different patterns based on your personal thoughts about everyone else's identity and, as a Spy, completely foiling those hunches. The only recurring problem we experienced with these social interactions was with more naturally quiet people, who essentially provided no response when accusations were thrown at them or when they were almost sure that this or that player was a Spy.
When everyone revealed themselves at the end of the game, we were almost always surprised at the results. There were some cases when the spies had completely fooled us, but there were some cases where some who we had thought were spies had accurately predicted the real spies, and we just hadn't listened to them. The randomness of the alliances combined with everyone's differing personalities created a new experience every time we played.
At our final game for the evening, my brain essentially gave out -- I was too mentally tired to play anymore -- I just didn't realize it until it was over. There eight of us, and it was really hard to keep track of all the possibilities and different combinations of alliances between players. As a result, I am convinced that this party game is best played with a lower number of players, and the number of plays should be limited to three at maximum.
Overall, The Resistance continues to be a blast to play, and it's a great option for larger (unimaginative) groups that can't come up with anything to do. And in addition to being compact and easily transportable, The Resistance is an accessible option for large groups that includes everyone around, making it an easy way to turn an average night into a great night.
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| [March 26, 2012 11:57:16 PM]
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I recently purchased a small party game called The Resistance, and the fact that I had never played it before now made it a great option for my Game Log. Because of my inexperience with this fairly unheard-of title, I will spend a good portion of the log describing the mechanics of the game, the learning curve for players of all types and its suitability to large groups, and my opinion of the overall experience.
The Resistance is an indie party game similar to the likes of the party game Mafia. It is loosely card-based, but the cards are only used as a visual aid so that players don't have to remember everything -- it could be played (with difficulty) without cards.
There are two factions in The Resistance: the Resistance itself, and the Spies. The object of the Resistance team is to complete three missions, and the object of the Spies is to sabotage three missions. The twist is that each player's identity is kept secret from (most) other players.
The game starts by randomly assigning a role (either Resistance or Spy) to each player (the game plays 5-10), and that role is kept hidden by the player for the entire game. However, everyone is immediately told to close their eyes; then the Spies are allowed to open their eyes and identify the other Spies. In other words, the Spies know who the Spies are, but the Resistance has no idea who anyone is. As I will further explain later, the game leans in favor of the Spies, but there are fewer of them than of the Resistance.
The game has consists of two phases: the Team Select phase and the Mission phase. After the player cards have been distributed (and the spies learn who the other spies are), play immediately proceeds to the Team Select phase. In this phase, the Leader (randomly selected at the beginning of play) picks the team that will go on the mission. The size of this team increases both with the number of players and with the number of the mission (the later in the game, the larger the team). After the team has been selected, all players vote on whether or not the team should be sent on the mission. If there is no majority vote in favor, the Leader passes in a clockwise direction and the players restart the Team Select phase (until a team vote passes).
Once the team vote passes, the players selected for the mission must vote to either Aid the mission or Sabotage the mission. Whereas the team vote was held publicly, this vote is kept (very) secret. Members of the Spies can vote either to Aid or to Sabotage, but members of the Resistance may only vote to Aid. If a single vote is cast as Sabotage, the mission fails; like I said, the game leans in favor of the Spies (the minority). This is where a large part of the strategy comes in. Players can say anything they want, except for revealing their team identity and their mission vote. So spies can vote however they want, but they put themselves at risk of being accused of being spies, when a pattern of the mission results can be detected. So it is often beneficial for a spy to keep his identity unknown by voting to Aid a mission (when the opportunity suits him). It is up to the Resistance (through careful player observation and sometimes outright accusation) to figure out who the Spies are. However, as their identities can never be revealed for certain (until the end of the game), it is everyone's word against each other.
Our game was played with 7 people, and after it got going, it was a blast. The social intrigue introduced into the midst of the crowd participating was exciting, and the game did an excellent job of bringing out the detective in those who were naturally talkative. I wish everyone who played this game were talkative, because sometimes the quiet ones were the most difficult to analyze.
The game is somewhat poorly balanced, I must admit, though an expansion pack is included in addition to the core game that supposedly assists the Resistance, and there are multiple variations with the same intent. However, it is fitting that the Spies, who are the minority, are given a boost in gameplay, and the game, in spite of the balancing, frequently comes down to the last possible mission (where two missions have failed and two have succeeded).
A problem that I hinted at earlier is player participation, but this is a problem in any game, especially party games. If a player doesn't want to play, it can be difficult for other players to analyze him, and it can introduce a significant imbalance into the game. But while all games struggle with this, The Resistance suffers less because the play times are so short. Most of our games (even the first) were finished in less than 45 minutes.
The game is also very friendly to new players (which we all were the first time we played), as the rules are pretty easy to grasp once play gets rolling. However, it seems like the game is better suited to fewer players (less than 8) than more players, because it becomes difficult to track each player when there are too many people (as this is how our brains works).
The game, now that I think about it, does present some pretty interesting ideas for my third game project (The Broken Road), particularly with respect to NPC interaction. Deception plays a big part in The Resistance, and I hope the writing of The Broken Road will reflect human reactions as much as they can and maybe even able to deceive the player a time or two in their experience.
I am glad that this is a board game, however (technically a party game, since there's not really a board). It would be almost impossible to judge players and their interactions if it weren't face to face. But I also think that this works to its advantage, because it gets people interacting with each other, not just sitting behind computers all day. And, honestly, the social aspect of the game is just plain enjoyable. And because of that, I'm genuinely glad I made this purchase.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 27th, 2012 at 10:11:30.
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wjm110's The Resistance (Other)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 26 March, 2012
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